


Crow Black Dream

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Dark Agenda, M/M, Masturbation, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Hazel learns that temptation takes many forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crow Black Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kispexi2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kispexi2/gifts).



> Originally written for the [valentine_smut](http://community.livejournal.com/valentine_smut/>) giftfic exchange 2010

It's an old game, walking along the fences, heel-toe, heel-toe, balancing on the posts in between; not one that Hazel plays often anymore. He wants to believe that he's too grown up for the thrill of danger that comes from teetering along the narrowest of boards or the tingle of triumph that runs up his spine when he reaches each individual post -- ports in a storm where his balance is undeniably secure, where he can crouch down, hugging his knees and look out across the endless hills, feeling the wind on his face and breathing peace deep into his lungs.

This is the childhood that he wishes to surrender, or more aptly, to trade in.

Down along the road, the McArthur sisters -- Annabelle, Gillian and little Maggie, a trio in blue dresses and matching hair-bows -- are jumping rope and singing; their voices just touching Hazel's ears: _" One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold..."_

"So this is where you've run off to, little angel..."

Hazel starts, hands flying to the weather-softened wood of the fence post, fingertips digging in. He feels what must be a splinter lodge under one of his fingernails as the shadow of a great raven settles over him.

"Did I frighten you?"

"No," Hazel responds automatically, though he can feel his heart high in his throat and the hairs standing up along the back of his neck; that reaction, however, is one that Ukoku often evokes, whether he catches Hazel off-guard or not. "What're you doin' here?"

"Me?" Ukoku leans against the fence at Hazel's shoulder, reaching into the voluminous folds of his robes and retrieving the packet of foul-smelling cigarettes he likes. He lights up and blows a careful ring of smoke towards the sunny August sky. "I was just out for a little stroll - and what do my eyes behold, but an angel alighted upon a fence post. It piqued my curiosity."

Hazel makes a vague noise, adjusting his balance. The small of his back is starting to ache a little, but he doesn't want to get down just yet. Somewhere in the distance a crow cries out, and he shudders, despite himself, remembering black feathers against tombstones and the chill embrace of nothingness.

"Are you ever gonna go back where ya came from?" He doesn't mean for it to come out sounding so rude, but he can't keep the slightest trace of childish petulance out of his voice. He is in awe of this man who calls himself Ukoku Sanzo in the truest sense of the word -- both fearful and reverent of a being with so much power, but so little hesitation to use it. Hazel can't decide whether to aspire to be like Ukoku, or to take him as an example of everything that he should never allow himself to become.

"Raven, raven fly away home - is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"That's a ladybug."

"Is it?" Ukoku clucks his tongue, "my mistake then."

Hazel runs his tongue along the roof of his mouth, rocks forward on his heels until he's right on the edge of pitching forward into the scrub grass. The adults in the village always say that it's possible for a boy to break his neck walking along the fence, but Hazel has never heard of it actually happening. He settles back, after a moment, knowing that if he were to be the first, right then, Ukoku would probably walk away and leave his body there under the sun, and the crow calling in the distance would set its sin-blackened beak to Hazel's bones.

The thought makes his guts twist up in fury and terror, makes his heart drop right down into his feet the way it did when Ukoku spoke those words to him that are now burned into the space between his ears: _"You have no worth."_

"Will you...take me with you?"

Ukoku drops his cigarette to the ground, straightens up, and walks away, towards the distant copse of trees where, after dark, the village boys like to play chicken, putting their backs to the shadowed trees and challenging the monsters that dwell within to come out and snatch them away. There are no monsters living there, really; Bishop Filbert makes certain of that - but the point is that so many of the boys believe they are there. After a moment, Hazel jumps down from the fence and follows on Ukoku's heels.

"That ain't an answer, ya know."

Hazel has to take two strides for every of Ukoku's one - it feels like chasing a shadow, forever out of reach.

"Bishop Filbert," Ukoku says without turning around, "told me to stop bothering you. Maybe I should have listened."

"You ain't botherin' me." Hazel is finally shoulder to shoulder with the Raven Priest, panting softly and working his legs until the muscles begin to burn, but he's afraid to look up at the man's face.

"And what, exactly, do you think you would do if you came back with me?"

"Learn to kill monsters. Learn to kill 'em the way you do."

Hazel is not, however, precisely certain that he wants this, when he really stops to think about it. It's a little like being offered a chance to see the true face of God - knowing that once you see it, nothing that comes after will ever be the same.

But then, Hazel has already seen something like that - the vacant expanse of Ukoku's true power, which seems to have left a stain on his consciousness, or maybe something more like an oily residue that just won't wash off.

Ukoku steps into the trees, almost vanishing in the mixing of shadows. There is a thick layer of last year's fallen leaves on the ground here, but Ukoku moves as silent as a ghost, where Hazel's footfalls seem heavy and impossibly awkward.

"Is that what you really want, little angel?"

Ukoku's voice is smooth, so tempting. Hazel can feel it running down the space between his shoulder blades like cool water. The trees have stopped the breeze, and it's as if they are moving through a place beyond reality, just the two of them, out of reach of even his master's ever-gentle eye.

The knowledge gives Hazel a sudden chill, like the terror he felt standing beneath blackened trees and hearing the cries of hundreds of crows.

Ukoku stops, glances over his shoulder. Light coming through the canopy glints off his glasses and renders his dark eyes invisible.

"Well?"

"I..." Hazel licks his lips, pushes suddenly mussed strands of hair off his forehead. He is sweating, even though the air seems cool now. "I..."

He doesn't know, and that's the truth. He does know that he wants more than anything to have the power to destroy monsters like the one who killed the villagers - the one that nearly killed his master - and he knows that there is an anger, a frustration deep inside him that no amount of prayers can ease at his own inability, as well as fury at the knowing smirk he saw on Ukoku's face that night when he failed to wipe out each and every one of the crows in the graveyard trees.

Ukoku turns to face Hazel and the shadows around them both seem to lengthen, obliterating everything human in the man's face. Instinct shouts at Hazel to move back, or better yet to run; but he did not run from the monster in the graveyard, and he will not run now. He digs his fingernails into the palms of his hands and presses his heels into the dirt.

"You want me to take you away from here," Ukoku enunciates each word very carefully. It is not, Hazel thinks, because the language is foreign to him - in fact Ukoku has hardly any Eastern accent at all - but because, deep inside himself, Ukoku is laughing at Hazel. "You want me to set you free of this simple, country boy's life and to teach you everything that I know."

"Master..." Hazel's voice cracks and he has to pause to clear his throat, "that is...Master ain't ever gonna teach me. I don't think."

Hazel doesn't know, of course, but everything is prepared now for the beginning of his training. The cold temptation of the power that Ukoku wielded is all that his eyes can see.

Ukoku puts a hand on his head. To Hazel, Ukoku's fingers feel cold even through the thickness of his hair.

"You don't want a master like me," Ukoku curls his fingers just enough that Hazel can feel the bit of the man's fingernails against his scalp. "You should be thankful for what you have. Isn't that what your God teaches you?"

Hazel's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth; reluctantly he nods his head.

"Would you give up what you have here - all of it - and kneel at the altars of heathen gods, little angel?" Ukoku's thumb skates against Hazel's scalp, the pressure mingling both pleasure and pain, so that something wicked seems to slip down the center of Hazel's chest and nestle between his legs. "Would you kneel before me?"

***

That night, Hazel dreams of a great angel, painted black head to toe, with empty eyes and a sharp smile. The angel's careful hands touch Hazel's skin, and where fingertip meets flesh it burns and aches, but not with pain.

The angel strokes back Hazel's hair with cool fingers, kisses his forehead with lips as dry as corn husks left out in the sun, and whispers, _"Kneel..."_

Hazel wakes, pulse racing as if he has just run the entire length of the town with the devil at his heels, body aching head to toe, the worst part of the ache in his penis, like nothing he has felt before. He pushes his sleeping pants down, and in the moonlight filtering through his curtains, finds it standing rigid, wet at the tip.

He rolls over, more than a little panicked, hoping to fall back to sleep, to forget the dream and find his body more his own when he wakes again; and the pressure of the mattress against his swollen penis sends a wave of pleasure through him he could never have anticipated. Suppressing a soft noise, he shifts his hips, and shifts them again - each press of flesh against cotton better than the last, closer to relief. He pulls desperate breaths of air through his thin, coarse pillowcase, feeling pleasure tighten like a hand of fire in the deepest part of his stomach until he is gasping and shaking. Then, all at once, there is a spark behind his eyes, a sudden catch in his throat, followed by a rush of warm relief.

It is several moments before the shame slinks in, as unwelcome as a rat, heralded by the realization that he is lying in a puddle of cooling wetness. He sits up quickly, wiping at his cheeks, which are damp with a fine layer of sweat and condensation, trying not to think about what he has done, but instead what he has to do next - the sheets have to be concealed, his skin cleaned. He pulls up the corner of the sheet and wipes hastily at his sticky thighs and belly before pulling his sleeping pants up and tugging the sheet from the bed, wadding it between his hands. If he can get it out to the washhouse, maybe no one will notice he has soiled it.

Barefoot, skin hot, and still breathless, he ducks out into the hall. He can hear Bishop Filbert snoring, low and steady, the rhythm of old dreams, but everything else is quiet. He hurries down the hallway, struggling to keep his footfalls soft and escapes into the cool night through the kitchen door. The moonlight traces a path to the washhouse, but Hazel feels no better for having disposed of the evidence. Back through the kitchen, his feet are wet with dew and leave tracks across the floor.

Ukoku is there, standing in the hallway just outside Hazel's room. The moonlight through the hall window leaves silver streaks across his bare chest; Hazel can make out lines of muscle, bone underneath, pale scars and faint blemishes. He looks more terrifying in only his trousers than he does in his robes, dangerous, but tantalizing. Hazel wants to reach out and trace his fingers through the moonlight on Ukoku's skin, but at the same time, he wants to scream. He is suddenly acutely aware of himself - his dampened feet, the fall of his hair, the lingering moisture on his belly and thighs, the salty smell hanging over him.

"You shouldn't wander at night, little angel." Ukoku's voice is barely a whisper, "you never know what you might find lurking in the dark."

"I ain't afraid of the dark," Hazel says automatically, stamping his fear down and stepping towards Ukoku. There's a chill down his back and a tangle in the pit of his stomach like a pair of cats at war, but back in the trees he had refused to kneel at the feet of anyone but God. And Ukoku, in his bare chest and unbuttoned jeans, is no god, heathen or otherwise.

"Goodnight little angel," Ukoku whispers as Hazel steps past him into the darkened bedroom, reaching a hand out to take the doorknob and shut him in, "sweet dreams."

-End-


End file.
